Last year, when heading home from the SCBWI Europolitan Conference in Brussels, I decided to stop in a city a bit north of me - Strasbourg, France. My reason for stopping was three fold 1. I was working on a story set in Alsace, 2. I was tired of being on the train and 3. I knew there was a museum there dedicated to Tomi Ungerer. What awaited there surprised me- in this light, white, beautiful interior was not Tomi's advertising posters or gouache and watercolor children's book illustrations but a massive collection of the drawings and paintings from his childhood. Along side his early drawings were examples of Tomi's favorite childhood books and illustration heroes. As the years progressed and the onset of one more World War set in the drawings recorded with precocious perception and humor the mess that was happening in and around this bilingual, shifting border city. Please find some snapshots from the exhibit below. (And forgive me for the reflection of yours truly that shows up faintly in the reflections:)

I'm very happy to say there are some really nice bookstores and children's boutiques in Switzerland selling a lot of gorgeous picture books. It's always nice to see, additionally, books from some of my American favorites picked up by German and Swiss publishers. I was at the "klein aber fine" Chinderbuechlade in Bern today and thought I'd share some pictures. http://www.chinderbuechlade.ch/

Hello- Thanks for being here to read my first blog post on my newly minted website. Here I plan to share projects I'm working on, experimentations & sketchbook pages, inspirational illustrations I have found in America and Europe, news and thoughts about children's literature as well as musings on childhood and more. Possibly I will surprise myself by how things develop...:)